Editorial method (EM_II_XX)
Because editors of the Nag Hammadi texts differ so widely in their practice, it seems best to state the principles on which the present Coptic edition is based. The character of our textual witnesses demands a cautious approach. For four tractates our sole witness is a Cairo manuscript, CG II; for t...
| Contributors: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subito Delivery Service: | Order now. |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Leiden Boston
Brill Academic Publishers
2012
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| In: | In: The Coptic Gnostic Library - A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, volume |
| Series/Journal: | BrillOnline Reference Works
Coptic Gnostic Library |
| Further subjects: | B
Gnostic literature
B Nag Hammadi Codices |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Deutschlandweit zugänglich) |
| Summary: | Because editors of the Nag Hammadi texts differ so widely in their practice, it seems best to state the principles on which the present Coptic edition is based. The character of our textual witnesses demands a cautious approach. For four tractates our sole witness is a Cairo manuscript, CG II; for the other two (tractates 2 and 5) it is joined by insignificant fragments of parallel manuscripts. The evidence is thus virtually limited to a unique codex, with the result that critical editing must proceed by conjecture.1 Moreover, the archaic date and orthographic peculiarities of our chief witness, its hybrid dialectal character, and the unpredictable nature of its contents make the detection of errors, not to speak of their emendation, far from easy. The amount of difficulty presented by each tractate also varies with the amount of damage it has suffered (worst in the Gospel According to Philip) and the coherence of its literary form (least coherent in the Gospel According to Thomas, Philip, and the Book of Thomas). There are, in addition, special difficulties associated with the treatise On the Origin of the World, which appears to have been—at the level of the original Coptic translation—an opus imperfectum |
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| Format: | Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/9789004228900_cgl_aEM_II_XX |